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A receipt printer cured my procrastination

laurieherault.com

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Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#201

Post by deadbabe »

uncircle wrote: post #115
laurieherault wrote: post #2

Author here. It’s my first article. I’m a bit nervous but excited to get your feedback. If you deal with procrastination too, I hope this method helps you like it helped me.

I was about to be a little snarky but your comment reminded me to be kind. Thanks. I don't have a receipt printer, what helps me is an A4-sized whiteboard with marker when I feel like I'm falling behind my tasks. Also, to use todos sparingly, so they retain their effectiveness. It's actually quite underrated to forget and let go of tasks; what's important tends to stick around in your head and keep you up at night. T…

If you’re procrastinating, but then find a method that works and go on to use it for several years, you didn’t have a procrastination issue, you just didn’t know how to get started.

Chronic procrastinators will inevitably procrastinate no matter what method they find.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#202

Post by hk1337 »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #182

my receipt printer is a whiteboard in the gym. I went from "I do some scattered, random assortment of lifts when I feel like it" to "I have 3 routines I cycle through every day" and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last time. Checking off my daily workout is my pulling a ticket down off the chore kanban. Every once in a while, as I get stronger, I get to "take a number off the…

> and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last time.

I think there's a huge connection to physically writing it as opposed to typing and printing. I never did anything with the weight lifting logs, I thought I might, but the most I ever did with anything in the past was looking at the progression from the last few days or weeks.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#203

Post by card_zero »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #192
jvanderbot wrote: post #65

> Why can I focus for hours on a game but procrastinate when writing an email? OK I got a bit triggered by this sentence. Not at TFA, but sharing my own experience: Games are fun . And I don't mean Type 1 vs Type 2 fun and the email is somehow type 2 fun. I mean that the stimulation / "hit" from a game is just higher than 90-99%% of work tasks (writing a new CLI or optimizer excluded!!). We pile on much stimulation t…

>When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong technical term, but it nails the practical effects well. Man no offense but this sounds devastatingly sad. "We must starve ourselves of fun so that the barest excitement at work feels good."

Yeah, it denies that games are any good, and demonizes fun as a vice. People who talk about dopamine and procrastination are just looking for ways to beat themselves up and start conflicted fights with themselves over what they want.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#204

Post by footy »

laurieherault wrote: post #161
trainyperson wrote: post #148

I like how the author mentioned typing speed tests as a “warm up” to the day. I frequently find myself going to do a typing speed test when I’m at my desk but unable to work, and have often wondered why I do that and if anyone else does that.

I am glad to see that I am not the only one doing this :)

I do this too. I can tell from my MonkeyType graph which work periods I felt more demoralized or distracted during.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#207

Post by uncircle »

deadbabe wrote: post #201
uncircle wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to be a little snarky but your comment reminded me to be kind. Thanks. I don't have a receipt printer, what helps me is an A4-sized whiteboard with marker when I feel like I'm falling behind my tasks. Also, to use todos sparingly, so they retain their effectiveness. It's actually quite underrated to forget and let go of tasks; what's important tends to stick around in your head and keep you up at night. T…

If you’re procrastinating, but then find a method that works and go on to use it for several years, you didn’t have a procrastination issue, you just didn’t know how to get started. Chronic procrastinators will inevitably procrastinate no matter what method they find.

Yes, that's true, but chronic procrastinators also get older which means they know what works best for them, and also accept that some stuff might fall through the cracks, and that's perfectly fine.

Wanting to have a perfectly organised life is unrealistic. We're not machines, but we're bombarded by the message that we can do better at organising our lives, often by those that want to sell us their product.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#208

Post by kazinator »

laurieherault wrote: post #199
kazinator wrote: post #168

Social media, YouTube and television before them shows us that people don't need feedback in order to stay glued. You can drop the back and just give them a feed .

Every image is feedback. Scrolling Instagram or Facebook gives you constant feedback.

Feedback is a response to an input. Okay, sure, clicking the remote to turn on a TV and selecting a channel is input. So, by a stretch, we can call the four hour binge a kind of feedback generated by two button clicks.

Sometimes people get glued by a screen that they did not turn on; is that still feedback? E.g. kids watching a screen in some waiting room at a children's dentist.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#209

Post by MMK16 »

How is this printer idea any different than a simple to do list?

To break down tasks one can simply indent a list.

A to do list gives feedback every time you cross an item of the list.

Sticky notes and printers seem like exaggerated form of a todo list.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#210

Post by akavel »

laurieherault wrote: post #197
bengale wrote: post #185

I don't want to be a downer on this because it sounds like a cool system, but it might be worth checking whats in the receipt paper as a lot of it is pretty bad for you: https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-toxic...

Yes, the main problem is the paper with bisphenol, which has been banned in Europe.

Even though bisphenol-A is banned in EU, I believe bisphenol-B is still allowed. I suspect - though I don't know how to research whether it's true or false - that everyone just switched to bisphenol-B, which is said to be either similarly, or more toxic than BPA... :(

Even assuming that "BPA-free" paper I'd buy is really so, and not just BPA-covered one imported from China and said/labeled to be "BPA-free" by someone somewhere in the pipeline...

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